The Raft: four teenagers posed on raft

A Coming-of-Age Adventure at Sea

When three teenage Maccabi Haifa soccer fans hear that their team’s upcoming Champions League Playoffs game against Liverpool FC will be moved from Israel to Cyprus, they are distraught. Unable to afford the $550 to buy an airplane ticket, they are nonetheless determined to see the match. So, they need to come up with a plan—fast.

Continue reading

Honeymood movie still

In ‘Honeymood,’ Wedding Night Balagan

In Honeymood, director Talya Lavie makes piercing observations about fraught relationships, family tensions, marital doubts, lingering affections for past loves and the challenges of long-term partnerships. Thrown into the mix is a mysterious ring with a sensitive past best kept secret—which, of course, it would not remain. 

Continue reading

Passage to Sweden Film Poster

Scandinavian Morality During WWII

Passage to Sweden Released January 27, 2021 (USA) 58 minutes Directed by Suzannah Warlick Bubble Soup Productions Documentary, English Why do countries behave so differently toward their religious and ethnic minorities? Are nations’ education systems so divergent that their citizens develop distinct moral codes? How much does leadership matter? Why do some ordinary people risk their lives to save others?  In her recently released documentary, Passage to Sweden, director, producer and writer Suzannah Warlick examines these vital questions through the prism of the little-known story of Scandinavian Jews’ (and those in Budapest who were rescued by Swedish national Raoul Wallenberg) widely differing experiences during World War II. Warlick shot 130 hours of material from which she has skillfully woven a treasure trove of archival film footage, photographs and interviews with people who lived in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Hungary through the war...

Continue reading

Still from Shiva Baby

A Funeral Farce (Shiva Baby)

Shiva Baby Released April 2, 2021 (USA) 1 hour 17 minutes Directed by Emma Seligman Neon Heart Productions Comedy, English When Danielle’s overbearing mother presses her into attending a shiva, a series of disasters converge over the span of several hours. Shiva Baby, directed by Emma Seligman, is a taut, finely scripted comedy in which emotional tensions, hidden secrets and discomforting personal interactions tumble out so swiftly that the audience is on tenterhooks wondering where this car crash will end. Danielle, played by Rachel Sennott (High Maintenance, Call Your Mother), is a bisexual woman who has just graduated with a degree in gender business studies, but she is aimless and unemployed. She has told her parents that she has what she euphemistically calls a part-time “babysitting” job that, in reality, involves getting paid for sex with a married man. Her parents’ desire for...

Continue reading